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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 25, 1999

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON WELFARE-TO-WORK INITIATIVES

Presidential Hall

11:02 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is a good
way
to start the day, isn't it? (Laughter.) We're all going to feel better
when we
leave here.

Let me thank the previous speakers -- first I want to thank Robert
Higgins and his entire organization for setting an example for corporations
throughout America. And I thank his employees for coming here today and
for
being a vivid human illustration of how welfare reform can work at its
best.

I thank my good friend of many years, Governor Mel Carnahan, and
Mrs.
Carnahan who is here with him. We made two of our major welfare reform
announcements over the last several years in Missouri because no state has
worked harder to do this right, in a both humane and effective way.

I want to thank Carlos -- I was looking at him -- I don't know how
many
-- how many public speeches do you think Carlos has made in his life?
(Laughter.) Man, he stood up here, he had his head up, his shoulders back
(applause.) I was thinking as I was watching him that after he does all
that
computer stuff and makes money for a few years, that we're always looking
for a
few good candidates in this business, and he looked awfully good.
(Laughter.)

I would like to thank Secretary Shalala, Secretary Herman, and
Secretary
Slater for their work on welfare reform. And there are two members of the
House
of Representatives here today who represent very different districts, but
who
have a passionate interest in this whole subject -- Representative Ben
Cardin
from Maryland and Representative Rubin Hinojosa from South Texas. And I
thank
them for being here and for what they've done for this cause. (Applause.)

And my good friend, Jane Campbell, County Commissioner from
Cayahoga
County, Cleveland, Ohio. And I'd like to say a special word, if I might,
before
I get into my remarks about Eli Segal who started our welfare-to-work
partnership.

You know, it takes a special, almost a genius, to start something
that
didn't exist before. And a couple of years ago when I announced in the
State of
the Union we were going to have this welfare-to-work partnership, we had
five
companies. A couple of years later we have 10,000 companies.

Yesterday, you may have seen in the press, I went home
to Arkansas to look at some terrible tornado damage. At each
place where I went, both these places, there was a team of our
young AmeriCorps volunteers from all over America -- and most of
them had never been to Arkansas before. One of the teams was
from St. Louis, working on the tornado damage. These young
Americans give a year, sometimes two years of their lives; they
earn credit for college. In four years there have been over
100,000 AmeriCorps volunteers. It took the Peace Corps 20 years
to get to 100,000 volunteers. Eli Segal also started AmeriCorps.
So for two great contributions to the United States, we thank him
for his remarkable, remarkable -- (applause.)

One of the reasons that I ran for President in 1992 was
to change the welfare system as we then knew it -- to move from a
system that promoted independence and had no incentives for
parents who are not custodial parents to be responsible, and
basically gave people a check that was almost always inadequate,
in the name of being humane, which assumed, more often than not,
that they had no capacity to work and support their children.

All these things were done with the best of intentions
-- we either assumed people couldn't do the right thing or we
assumed that they wouldn't do the right thing, and so, well, we
made the best of an imperfect world by at least cutting a check
once a month and then making sure that -- and I approve of this
and kept it -- there were nutritional and health benefits for the
children.

And it seemed to me that we ought to -- before we just
continue to give up on this -- we now had created a couple or
three generations in some places of people who depended on
welfare checks and repeated the pattern of the past -- that we
ought to try to develop a system that at least would try to
create incentives and, where appropriate, requirements that would
promote independence, work and family responsibilities.

Now, everybody liked the idea and wanted to do it, but
a lot of people, including a lot of very good people who had
labored for years in this system, doubted that it could be done.
And so we started working at it. And in the past six years, I
think it's obvious that the American people have done a lot to
change all that.

When I became President, I worked with 43 states --
Governor Carnahan mentioned this -- before we passed legislation,
to just free them of federal rules which undermined their ability
to create a system that would promote work and family. There
were many innovative programs that already were beginning to move
large numbers of people from welfare to work, even before 1996.
It was in that year that I was able to sign the landmark
bipartisan welfare reform law. I said then that our nation's
answers to the problems of poverty will no longer be a
never-ending cycle of welfare, but instead the dignity, the
power, the ethic of work.

Today we can actually foresee a time when we can break
the cycle of welfare for good -- when welfare will literally be
a support system given to people in hard economic times, or when
personal misfortune occurs, but that it will not be the rule of
life for large numbers of our fellow citizens.

Already we now see welfare rolls in America are the
lowest they've been in 30 years -- for the first time in 30
years, below 8 million people; down by 44 percent since I took
office. And the same people -- the number of people on welfare
who are also working some, taking that first step toward
responsibility, has tripled. Every state -- every state -- is
now meeting the work participation standards required under the
welfare reform law, something I confess that even I did not
believe would happen. None of believed that they would -- every
single one of them so far is meeting the work participation
standards of the welfare reform law.

America is working again, and this work is transforming
lives and families. The welfare system is no longer holding
people back, it is helping them to move ahead.

Since the goal here -- and let's not forget what the
goal is -- it is to empower individuals and strengthen families.
We've had to do more than simply put time limits on welfare. As
I said a moment ago, those who lose their welfare checks continue
to get health and nutritional support for their children -- and
they should. It was one of the big battles we fought here when
we debated this, and it led to two vetoes before we finally got a
bill that I felt that I could sign.

We also have increased our support for training, for
transportation, for child care for those who move from welfare to
work, recognizing that there are barriers and we shouldn't expect
people to actually move from welfare to work and lower their
standard of living and lower their ability to support their
children. And there is more support for child care,
substantially more, in this budget and for other things.

We have given more support for health care and child
care for all low income working families. I think that our
citizens should never forget that the largest number of poor
people in America are the working poor. And we should be
sensitive of that. And with the help of Congress we have doubled
the earned income tax credit for families with children. That is
a targeted tax cut that's especially generous to low income
working families. And today it's worth about $1,000 to every
family of four with an income of under $30,000; and for families
of two and three, lower incomes, it's worth quite a lot of money.
So this was a major contribution of the economic plan of 1993 and
it alone, along with the increase in the minimum wage, has lifted
over 2 million children out of poverty.

Finally, let me say, as all of you know, I am trying to
raise the minimum wage again because I don't think people should
work so poor children can still be in poverty. (Applause.)

I think it is very important, however, that we
recognize that much of the success of welfare reform has come
because of the growth of the economy at large -- nearly 18
million new jobs in the last six years. I also think we have to
recognize that much of the success of welfare reform has come
because of the commitment of people in the private sector to do
the right thing. I think that if there were no companies willing
to have the example that Fleet has offered us today, this would
be much, much harder.

And as we look ahead to the future, we have to assume
that reaching the next 8 million people -- or just under 8
million people -- on welfare will be even more challenging than
reaching the 44 percent reduction that we have seen achieved
already. Therefore, since it's not fair to require people to
work unless they have a chance to work, we have to honor and
build up and work with the private sector to make sure they have
that chance.

As I said, we started two years ago with five companies
in the welfare-to-work partnership. Today there are 10,000.
They have hired, retrained, and often promoted literally hundreds
of thousands of people. And as you have heard, this is not
charity -- it's good for families, but it's also good for the
bottom line, and good for the communities.

Now, smaller caseloads, bigger paychecks, are important
signs of progress. But I think it's also important that we
recognize this is about more than economics. And I think you can
see that. There's something intangible, even beyond the money,
involved here -- the sense of security of these newly-working
members of our country; the sense of pride at being able to
support a child, and being able to be a fully participating
member of society.

So we have to do more, and we now know what works. And
we've seen examples of it today. We know that long-term welfare
recipients can be turned into full-time workers. Now we must
ensure that we go to the next step, that we deal with the
remaining people on welfare, and that we do it, recognizing that
it is a challenge, but also a phenomenal opportunity for the
United States and a responsibility for those of us who can do
something about it.

In my State of the Union address last week I said that
we can help another 200,000 Americans move from welfare to work
with extra support in the federal budget. To achieve that, I
propose first that we renew the welfare-to-work program, which is
set to expire in the year 2000. My balanced budget includes $1
billion to help states and communities build upon their record of
success. It also dedicates $150 million of those funds to low
income fathers who fulfill their duty to work, to pay child
support, to become part of their children's lives.

And I think all of us were thrilled by Carlos's
statement. But I would like to make one point here that he made
that I think ought to be made more explicit. There is a reason
that welfare reform has worked. There is a reason that programs
like this magnificent program in Minnesota, giving fathers the
tools they need to support their children, has worked. And that
is, most people are basically good people who want to do the
right thing.

You know, we have all these programs, we talk about all
these policies and we hardly ever say that. But I think that's
worth stating. You saw a good person up here, talking about a
child he loved. And it's so easy to forget that. The reason all
this stuff can be done is that human nature will rise to the
level of possibility if given the opportunity and the guidance
and the support. That's the reason these rolls have reduced so
much.

You know, I hardly ever -- when I was governor for 12
years I ran a welfare system in a poor state -- I don't believe I
ever met -- and I went to welfare offices, and I sat and talked
with caseworkers and welfare recipients, and went through the
details of it -- and I have never met a person who has said, you
know, I really love getting this welfare check, and I hope I
never have to hit a lick. (Laughter.) I never met a person who
said, gosh, I'm proud that I never pay any child support to my
child. You know, there may be a few, but to pretend that is
anything like more than a small minority is a foolish assumption.
(Applause.)

So I say, this is very important. And this $150
million to support people, so there can be more stories like
Carlos Rosas', is very, very important. Many states are using
some of their welfare-to-work funds, as you heard from Governor
Carnahan already, to get fathers to sign personal responsibility
contracts, to do the right thing by their children. And now this
extra $150 million will help to ensure that every state can have
this kind of effort, and that every community that has any
substantial number of people who would fall under this category
can do the kinds of things we've heard about in this Minnesota
program.

But we have more to do. With the longest peacetime
expansion in history, with a continually growing economy,
businesses have to reach wider to get new talent. They have to
bring more welfare recipients into the workplace if we're going
to continue to grow.

So we have to see this as an opportunity to make
permanent gains in dealing with the welfare challenge. And
therefore, I think we have to do more to help those recipients
who are still on the rolls. And as I said, they're often the
greatest challenges to getting people into the work force.

Example number one -- that's why Secretary Slater is
here today -- two-thirds of the new jobs in America are in the
suburbs; three-quarters of the welfare recipients are in the
cities, or in isolated rural areas. So you've got the jobs in
the middle, and the welfare recipients in the cities or in the
rural areas.

Our balanced budget will double funding to get workers
to the workplace -- for transportation support. It also has a
50-percent increase in housing vouchers, to help families find
affordable homes closer to the jobs and avoid difficult and,
sometimes, actually impossible commutes.

Now, these are the kinds of things that I think we
ought to be doing. We don't have any excuse not to do it. We
have the example of Fleet. We have the example of Missouri and
Governor Carnahan. We have the example of Carlos Rosas. We have
the example of these fine women who stood up when they were
introduced as employees of Fleet. And we now know that it is not
only the right thing to do for our country, it is the right thing
to do for our companies.

So I hope that we will have enormous bipartisan support
for this new advance in the welfare budget. And I hope all of
you will do everything you can to spread the word across the
country that it is good for America to do this, and it will work
because most people are good people and they want to do the right
thing.